I am trying to use https://plus.google.com/share?url=<URL> to programmatically share a site to a private circle on Google Plus. It's not a problem when I use an externally visible website, but I would like to share a private URL (host on an internal network).

When I use a private URL, the plus sharing page shows a spinning icon, as though it's trying to access the internal URL for content, and the 'share' button remains dim - I cannot move forward.

I tried adding noverify=true or verify=false, etc to the GET line, but that didn't change the behavior. I suspect it can be done, because I can post private URLs via the taberareloo plugin on chrome.

Is there a way to skip probing the provided URL link, or otherwise post a private URL when posting to Google plus circles using the https://plus.google.com/share?url=<URL> mechanism?

Kind of a funky workaround, but you could have a public page which is just a redirector (not a 301, but rather a javascript or meta redirect), and provide that link to G+. It would understand it to be a normal public page, while the user experience would be to get redirected to your internal link.